The number of large landowners among companies has decreased by one third since the opening of the land market in Ukraine. This was reported by the information and analytical center Experts Club with reference to a study conducted by OpenDataBot on the basis of data from the State Land Cadastre. Thus, 91 companies reduced their land banks to a level of less than 100 hectares over two years. 31% of all land plots owned by businesses are held by 10 landowning companies. Currently, 192 companies own land banks of more than 100 hectares.
There are currently 192 companies in Ukraine whose ownership includes more than 100 hectares of land. For comparison, at the time the land market opened in 2024, there were 283 such companies. During 2024, the list of large landowners decreased by 51 companies, and last year by another 40 companies.
Under conditions of uncertainty, destruction of infrastructure, the difficulty of demining territories, and problems with logistics, large companies are in no hurry to increase their land banks, which explains the reduction in the number of large landowners, Denis Marchuk explains.
“For big business, buying land is an investment for decades and billion-scale вложення. Under the current conditions of war, these funds are more often directed to supporting working capital, covering logistical and export risks, and restoring damaged infrastructure (elevators, warehouses, machinery, etc.). Currently, business chooses a mobility model—leasing instead of ownership. This makes it possible to respond faster to risks and change regions of presence. Land is bought mainly by those players who clearly plan long-term work and choose regions with lower risks, which explains the significant difference in prices between western and southern Ukraine,” — Denis Marchuk, Deputy Head of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council.
Almost one third of Ukrainian land owned by business is held by only 10 companies. In total, this top ten owns 18,344.98 hectares. However, even within the list of leaders there is a large gap: the largest landowning company, the agricultural firm Svitanok, has 10 times more land than the company Kuialnyk, which closes the top ten.
“For Ukraine, this is a historically normal structure of the agricultural sector, when 20–25% of the market falls to big business. The key problem is not concentration as such, but access of small and medium-sized businesses to financial resources. With the availability of affordable lending, they can compete fully, in particular through auctions of state land,” Denis Marchuk believes.
The leader in reducing its land bank was the company Zemletrade: from 3,161.47 hectares to 733.57 hectares, that is, almost four times. The company Agroforest reduced its areas by 8.6 times—from 1,803.09 hectares to 210.44 hectares. At the same time, 103 companies did not change the area of their land holdings at all.
38 companies from the list of large landowners are registered in Kyiv Oblast. Another 28 companies are registered in Kirovohrad Oblast, and the same number—directly in Kyiv. At the same time, in Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, and Chernivtsi oblasts, large landowners among companies are absent.
It is worth noting that some of the companies from the list of the largest landowners are registered in territories affected by the war. Thus, 16 companies are registered in temporarily occupied territories. 4 companies are registered in zones of active hostilities where state electronic information resources continue to function. And 14 companies are located in territories of possible hostilities.
67% of large landowners operate in the field of agriculture—129 companies. Another 33 companies, or 17%, are associated with real estate operations. In the field of public administration and defense, 11 companies operate; in wholesale trade—4; in the financial sector—3 companies. Among large landowners there are also two companies included in the OpenDataBot Index for 2025. These are Ukreximbank and Oschadbank, which own land plots with an area of more than 100 hectares.
